"UVALDE TEACHER DESCRIBES PLAYING DEAD WHILE STUDENTS MURDERED, YOGURT SHOP KILLER LINKED TO KENTUCKY COLD CASE & MANSION MURDERS DAY 2"

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Wednesday, January fourteenth, twenty twenty six, Day five of the Uvaldi trial. The most devastating testimony yet. A fourth grade teacher described being shot in the arm, then lying on the floor pretending to be dead while the shooter murdered every single one of his students. None of the children in room one hundred eleven survived, the teacher did. He has to live with that forever. Plus sometimes justice takes twenty seven years, sometimes the killer is already dead, and sometimes one monster is responsible for more horror than anyone realized. Linda Marie Rutledge, forty three years old, November seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Lexington, Kentucky.

0:55 Firefighters responded to a structure fire at the Nixon Hearing Aid Center found her body in the back back hallway, multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Case went cold. Twenty seven years of nothing until now Lexington police have identified her killer, Robert Eugene Brasher's You might not know that name, but you know what he did. December sixth, nineteen ninety one, Austin, Texas. The I can't believe it's yogurt shop. Four teenage girls, Jennifer Harbison, Eliza Thomas, Sarah Harbison, and Amy Ayers bound sexually assaulted, shot, and burned. One of the most notorious unsolved cases in American history. Brashers killed those four girls, then, while out on bond for other crimes, traveled to Kentucky and killed Linda Rutledge, same gun, same DNA, same monster, And day two of the Mansion murders trial in New Jersey, testimony begins against Paul Kniro. I'm reed Carter today. A serial killer exposed after devastating testimony from Uvalde and the question that haunts every cold case, who else did he kill?

2:08 This is celebrity trials. Let's start with the story that's making headlines across the country. December sixth, nineteen ninety one, Austin, Texas, The I can't believe it's yogurt shop on West Anderson Lane. Jennifer Harbison, seventeen, was working the closing shift with her friend Eliza Thomas, also seventeen. Jennifer's younger sister Sarah fifteen, stopped by, so did their friend Amy Ayers, thirteen. Four teenage girls Friday night, making a few dollars at a yogurt shop should have been home by midnight. Around eleven forty five pm, someone noticed smoke coming from the shop.

2:53 Firefighters responded found the building fully engulfed. Inside stacked near the back were four bodies. All four girls had been bound with their own clothing, All four had been sexually assaulted. All four had been shot in the head. The fire was set to destroy evidence. Austin was horrified. This wasn't a robbery gone wrong. This was a calculated, sadistic mass murder, and for years decades nobody knew who did it. The case became one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in Texas history. Four arrests were made in nineteen ninety nine, confessions obtained, but by two thousand and nine all charges were dismissed. DNA evidence didn't match the confessions were deemed unreliable.

3:38 The case went back to square one. Then, in September twenty twenty five, investigators got a hit. DNA from the Austin crime scene matched a profile that had been sitting in a database for years. The profile belonged to Robert Eugene Brasher's Brashers was a drifter, a predator. By nineteen ninety one, he already had a criminal history breaking into women's hearse home's sexual assault. He died in January nineteen ninety nine, killed himself before he could be connected to the yogurt shop murders. But here's what makes this story even more disturbing. He didn't stop killing after Austin. November seventh, nineteen ninety eight, Lexington, Kentucky, seven years after the yogurt shop murders, Lynda Marie Rutledge, forty three years old, was working at the Nixon Hearing Aid Center on Malibu Drive around seven forty am. Firefighters responded to a structure fire.

4:31 Found Rutledge dead in the back hallway, multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Fire set to destroy evidence. Sound familiar, same pattern, same method, kill burn leave. For twenty seven years, Lexington police worked the case, reviewed evidence, followed leads, nothing connected until July twenty twenty five, when they got a call from Austin. The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network had FO found a match. A point three to eight zero shell casing recovered from the Nixon Hearing Aid Center in Kentucky matched a shell casing from the Austin yogurt shop, same gun, same killer. The Kentucky State Police Forensics lab examined the casings confirmed they came from the same firearm, but it wasn't just ballistics. In September twenty twenty five, a sexual assault kit from Linda Rutledge was sent to DNA Labs International for testing. The profile matched the DNA from Austin. Robert Eugene Brashers killed the four yogurt shop girls in Texas, then seven years later killed Linda Rutledge in Kentucky. Same gun, same DNA, same monster, different states, different years, connected by forensic evidence that took decades to piece together. And here's the part that should make you furious.

5:50 When Brashers killed Linda Rutledge, he was out on bond. According to the Murder Sheet podcast, which recently covered Rutledge's case, Brashers had broken into a woman's house in the spring of nineteen ninety eight, got arrested, got bonded out, then traveled to Kentucky and murdered Linda Rutledge. He had broken into another woman's house earlier that year too. The system kept releasing him and women kept dying. This guy was going all over the Place, said podcast co host Ain Kin. He had broken into a woman's house in the spring. He had broken into a woman's house earlier that year, got bonded out, and then came up to Kentucky and murdered Linda. So I think whenever this guy was not in prison, we need to be considering that he may have been doing some crimes. That's the question now. How many more Brashers killed himself in January nineteen ninety nine, weeks after murdering Linda Rutledge. He'll never face trial, never be held accountable, never answer questions about what else he did.

6:54 But investigators are looking if Brashers killed in Texas in nineteen ninety one and Kentucky in nineteen ninety eight, what did he do in between? What other cold cases might match his DNA, his ballistics, his pattern. Margaret Brown, who directed an HBO documentary series about the yogurt shop murders, described the scope of the damage, just the ripple effect on so many people is so immense. The film, the series that I made, it was really just about how the trauma sort of extended outward, starting with, of course, the families and the people who were wrongfully accused the cops who worked on it, people who were making other films about it. It was just you would see these ripples of so many people affected by this one man's actions, wrongfully accused. That's a key part of this story. In nineteen ninety nine, four young men were arrested for the yogurt shop murders based on confessions that were later discredited.

7:52 Michael Scott, Robert Springsteen, Morris Pierce, and Forrest Wellborn. Their lives were destroyed. Scott and Springsteen were convicted and sentenced to death. It took until two thousand and nine for all charges to be dropped when DNA evidence excluded them. Eight years on death row for a crime they didn't commit because the real killer was already dead and nobody knew it. Now the families have answers. Linda Rutledge's family has asked for privacy as they process this news. The families of the Austin victims finally know who murdered their daughters. Lexington Police issued a statement, if Brashers were alive today, he would be arrested and charged with Rutledge's murder. While her case may be solved, it does not bring Linda back, but we hope that by knowing who killed her, her loved ones can begin to heal. The Murder Sheet podcast co host Kevin Greenley emphasized how law enforcement collaboration can help solve more cases. Once they solve a crime like this involving DNA, they pool their knowledge, they talk to one and they help other agencies solve their crimes. So Lexington has been helped, Lexington is going to help other agencies, and at the end of the day, there's going to be more justice for more victims because of this amount of teamwork. Justice twenty seven years late for a killer who's been dead for twenty six years. But it matters.

9:20 It matters to know, It matters to the families, It matters to the four men who were wrongfully accused in Austin. Jennifer Harbison was seventeen years old, should be fifty one today. Eliza Thomas was seventeen years old, should be fifty one today. Sarah Harbison was fifteen years old, should be forty nine today. Amy Airs was thirteen years old, should be forty seven today. Lynda Marie Rutledge was forty three years old, should be seventy today. Five women, one killer twenty seven years to connect the dots and the question that haunts investigators? Who else? We'll be right back with the most devas stating testimony from the Uvalde trial yet, a teacher describing how he played dead while every single one of his students was murdered.

10:07 Plus updates from the Mansion murders trial. Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm reed Carter, Day five of the Uvalde trial and the most devastating testimony yet. Arnulfo Reyes taught fourth grade in Room one hundred eleven at rob elementary nine and ten year old students on May twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. There was an award ceremony that morning. Afterward, Reyes took his students back to their classroom, turned off the lights, put on a movie, just another day. Then he heard loud noises. Thought someone was dropping books, but the sounds got louder closer. Pieces of wall and sheet rock started falling from the ceiling. Reyes told his students to get under their tables, locked down, procedure what they'd been trained to do. A black shadow appeared at the door, A figure with a gun. The shooter shot Rayes in the left arm, then went around him and started shooting his students. Reyes laid on the floor, pretending to be dead, the only way to survive. The shooter taunted him, shot him again, then left for the adjoining classroom, Room one hundred twelve, and continued shooting. None of the children in Room one hundred eleven survived. Every single one of Arnolfo Rays's students was murdered while he lay on the floor, wounded, pretending to be dead, listening to them die. Make it

11:38 make sense. Reyes was eventually rescued by law enforcement treated by EMTs. He survived, his students didn't. Texas rangers testified about what they found when they processed those classrooms. Ranger Scott Swick was assigned to document Room one hundred twelve, one of the two rooms where nineteen children and two teachers were murder. Bullet defects in the main door, in the closet door, empty magazines, fired, cartridge casings everywhere, in filing cabinets, in bookshelves, in desks, in children's backpacks. Ranger Terry Snyder arrived at the scene around five thirty pm that day, identified victims by their clothing or from a school roster. The next day he was assigned to mark cartridge casings in the hallway. Multiple photographs shown to the jury casings from the shooter, casings from law enforcement firearms, six rifle casings, two pistol casings from officers who returned fire.

12:36 And here's the detail that keeps coming up. The door to Room one point one one was unlocked. That's how the shooter got in. The door that was supposed to protect those children couldn't be locked. Snyder testified about tactical considerations, the fatal tunnel concept, acknowledging the danger both entering and inside that hallway, the difficulty of identifying where gunfire is coming from in echoing environments. Officers testified they were trained not to fire blindly, to use tactical movement, but tactical movement takes time and children were dying. Jim Claveman, the retired security coordinator for Uvaldi Schools, testified about the security cameras.

13:19 Four cameras were installed at rob Elementary. They were not actively monitored. Nobody was watching. The footage was only reviewed afterward if something happened. Something happened and nobody was watching. Ranger Roberto Montalvo testified about returning to the school days later to retrieve additional items from rooms one hundred eleven and one hundred twelve, including a hell fire trigger, a device that allows a semi automatic weapon to fire more rapidly. The cleaning crew found additional cartridges on May thirty first and June sixth, evidence scattered throughout classrooms full of dead children. Adrian Gonzalez is charged with twenty nine counts of child and in death, changement, and abandonment. Each count carries up to two years fifty eight years maximum if convicted on everything.

14:06 But this trial is about more than one officer. It's about doors that couldn't lock, security cameras, nobody watched training that said go to the gun fire, and officers who waited in hallways four hundred officers seventy minutes while a teacher lay on the floor pretending to be dead as his students were murdered around him. Former Uvaldi Schools police chief Pete Aradondo faces ten counts of his own. He was the on site commander, made the decisions that slowed the response. No trial date set for him yet. Nineteen children, two teachers, one teacher who survived by pretending to be dead, and a trial asking who failed them, who's responsible and what do we owe those children? Now, Arnulfo Reyes survived, he has to live with that day forever. His students didn't survive, They'll never get to live with anything. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, day two of the mansion murders trial, Paul Kniro fifty seven years old, accused of murdering his brother Keith fifty, sister in law Jennifer forty five, and their children, Sophia eight and Jesse eleven, November twenty eighteen, shot and stabbed to death, bodies burned in a mansion fire.

15:36 Yesterday was opening statements. Prosecutor Nicole Wallace laid out the state's case. Paul was stealing from the businesses he co owned with his brother. Keith discovered the theft sent Paul an email about missing money the day before the murders. Paul's solution kill his entire family, then set fire to his own house to make it look like the whole family was being targeted. The evidence police found clothing in Paul's basement with the children's DNA, a nine millimeter round matching the murder weapon, a latex glove all in a container. Paul apparently forgot about. Defense is going with an alternative suspect theory, pointing to a third Caniro brother, arguing police ignored other possibilities. Paul rejected a plea deal guaranteeing life without parole. If he loses, he faces life plus two hundred eleven and a half years. That's not a typo.

16:30 Testimony begins today. We'll be following every development that's celebrity trials for Wednesday, January fourteenth, twenty twenty six, a twenty seven year cold case solved. Robert Eugene Brasher's the yogurt Shop killer, has been linked to the nineteen ninety eight murder of Linda Rutledge in Kentucky. Same gun, same DNA, different state, same monster. Day five of the Uvalde trial brought the most devastating testimony yet. Teacher r. Nulfo Reyis described being shot in the arm, lying on the floor pretending to be dead while the shooter murdered every single one of his students in room one point one. None of them survived. And day two of the Mansion murders trial in New Jersey, testimony begins against Paul Kaniro tomorrow more from both trials. I'm reed, Carter. Sometimes surviving is its own kind of tragedy. This is celebrity trials.